Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to providing cup holders, for beverages or food items such as popcorn or fast food, in seating arrangements, such as furniture, seating in passenger vehicles, aircraft or boats, and theatre seating, and more particularly to providing lighted cup holders for such seating arrangements.
In recent years, seating arrangements, such as upholstered chairs and sofas have sometimes included tables and cup holders for supporting food and snack items, or beverages within easy reach of occupants of the chair or sofa. This has particularly been the case for specialized upholstered seating arrangements specifically designed for use with home theater equipment. In some of these seating arrangements, the table surfaces and cup holders may be incorporated into an armrest, a spacer unit in a modular seating arrangement, or a fold-down backrest section of a sofa, as shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,104,182, to Rasnick et al. Seating arrangements of the type typically utilized in movie theaters also sometimes include cup holders, for beverages or food items such as popcorn. U.S. Pat. No. 4,863,134, to Young et al, for example, shows a combination cup holder and armrest of the type used in movie theater seating arrangements.
Seating arrangements in vehicles, aircraft and boats are also sometimes utilized in conjunction with cup holders mounted in center consoles, dashboards, or accessory tables mounted adjacent the seating arrangement. The following U.S. patents illustrate prior approaches to providing cup holders in vehicles, located in center consoles, etc., of a vehicle, located adjacent a seating apparatus of the vehicle: U.S. Pat. No. 6,896,387 B2, to Renfro; U.S. Pat. No. 6,234,439 B1, to Townsend et al; U.S. Pat. No. 6,193,399 B1 to Hulse; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,375,805 to Sudak et al. In some applications, it would be desirable to provide a cup holder as part of the seating arrangement, rather than having the cup holder located in an adjacent structure.
All of the above mentioned seating arrangements are often utilized under conditions of complete darkness, or limited visibility, in which it may be difficult to readily locate the cup holders. In a home theater seating arrangements, for example, this may lead to spillage of beverages or food items, resulting in staining or other damage being done to the seating arrangement or flooring materials adjacent to the seating arrangement. The inability to quickly locate a cup holder adjacent to a seating arrangement in a vehicle or a boat may result, not only in spillage of the beverage or food, but may also cause the operator of the vehicle or boat to be dangerously distracted.
In cup holders used in conjunction with seating arrangements in a boat, not being able to locate a cup holder during hours of darkness may result in beverage and food containers falling overboard and contributing to pollution of the waterway in which the boat is operating. In movie theater seating arrangements, spillage of beverages and food items, caused by inability to accurately locate a cup holder, may significantly increase the time and cost required for cleaning of the theater and lead to customer dissatisfaction with a general lack of cleanliness, sticky floors, or wet seats.
It is desirable, therefore, to provide an improved apparatus and method for incorporating cup holders into seating arrangements which are commonly used in darkness or reduced visibility, in such a manner that the cup holder is easier to locate in darkness or under reduced visibility conditions. It is further desirable that such improvements be made in a form which can be readily incorporated into existing seating arrangements, in a manner which is unobtrusive and does not require any additional effort on the part of an occupant of the seating arrangement to utilize the cup holder.